Our Museum attracts a team of regular volunteers, without whom it would simply be an interesting, listed building full of glass-encased exhibits. The majority of our volunteers are craftspeople, often prizewinners.

However, other volunteers also maintain a beautiful garden - challenging in the Shetland climate- supply a gift shop full of unique, high-quality items, provide home-bakes to share, help our Seasonal Custodian with housekeeping, set up new exhibitions, organise the Archive and library, help with IT, or take photographs for the website and advertising.

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Reviews (10)

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Julia

Sep 23, 2021

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Interesting small museum about the art of knitting in the Shetlands. Amazing skills demonstrated and lots of inspiration gained. Recommended

Jamie Fleming

Jun 25, 2021

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Staff a wee bit nippy but nice displays. Better off going to the Shetland Museum.

Martina M.

Feb 09, 2021

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I loved chatting with the kind woman demonstrating her skills in the upper room, we talked about textiles and travels, life in Shetland and much more. It definitely made the entire experience much more pleasurable and enriching than it would have been otherwise.

Jill Geddes

May 19, 2020

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Fantastic collection of historic Fairisle knitting- and the chance to buy a piece for yourself!

Mattie Underhill

Nov 28, 2019

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Wonderful place with lovely volunteers and staff who patiently explained things and showed the gems inside cases. I could have spent a long time there.

Larry Deyell

Nov 11, 2019

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I've never been through the door, but I hear it's good if knitwear is your "thing".
Also the birthplace of Arthur Anderson, but that's been sidelined by the textiles somewhat.
But it's a Pokéstop, for the internationally played mobile-phone game "Pokémon Go", so, you know, there's that.

Chris Hutchison-Hounsell

Aug 27, 2019

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This museum is out of the way if you're on foot so I would take a pass on it. If you're driving by, you could stop in but you'll see a better display in the Upper Gallery at the Shetland Museum and Archives on Hays Dock and admission to that one is free. Here you pay £3 to see some knitted items and a floor loom, a couple of pieces of tweed and a couple of rugs in two rooms without interpretation. (We did see the emtire three rooms and read the boards but. , honestly, didn't find it worthwhile.)

Morag Stuart

Oct 25, 2018

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If you are interested in textiles and particularly knitting you will love this quaint little museum. I could have spent ages looking at all the samples but couldn't expect the other half to stay longer than we did!

Sandy Kerr

Oct 15, 2018

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What a great little museum. So good to learn about traditional Shetland textile production. Particularly liked the items the islanders had donated. There was a pair of gauntlet knitted gloves which I would like to try to recreate. The custodian was very knowledgeable and pleasant to talk to. I would recommend visiting if you go to Shetland.

Mark Haller

Jul 06, 2017

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It is really a craft shop with one room with a nice weaving loom and some good quality examples of various textiles. It is far from a museum and not really worth 3 quid compared to say the UNST boat museum.

Shetland Textile Museum